Bureaucratic couple, Pallavi and Pravin Darade, were asked to vacate Malabar Hill residence following Pallavi's transfer from BMC in 2017
The couple was allotted the Malabar Hill residence in 2014
The chief minister's blue-eyed bureaucrat Pravin Darade should now be able to skip eviction from a British-era civic bungalow that he resides in with his wife Pallavi, an Indian Revenue Service Officer, as he has been transferred to the civic headquarters in the rank his better half held till 2017.
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Allotted house in 2014
Pallavi Darade, now serving as the commissioner of Food and Drugs Administration, was given the Malabar Hill residence in 2014 when she was made the additional commissioner of Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation and Pravin Darade was appointed as the secretary to CM Devendra Fadnavis.
After the wife's transfer to FDA in 2017, the BMC had asked the couple to vacate the residence but they did not respond. When the matter escalated, the officer sought the government's intervention, following which a special order was issued to allow Darade to keep the bungalow till his retirement from service or his transfer to another city.
Pravin Darade (right) gets a farewell from MMRDA chief R A Rajeev on Wednesday. Pic/MMRDA
The BMC's legal counsel had found the order illegal and advised that the occupants be served eviction notices. When a series of notices went kaput, the BMC administration came up with an idea to move the couple out last December. It was proposed to demolish the bungalow for getting an underground water reservoir repaired. However, the project hasn't kicked off yet.
CM's man in BMC
Senior bureaucrats said Darade, with his transfer to the BMC, now has a legal standing to prolong his stay in the bungalow, which according to reliable information seems structurally sound.
One more reason cited for the officer's transfer is that the CMO would have a trusted bureaucrat in an important position that would help him monitor the Shiv Sena-led BMC from close quarters.
Darade comes to BMC after serving the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Authority as additional commissioner, primarily in charge of the metro network (excluding Metro 3). Sonia Sethi, who was in waiting for a posting, replaced him at MMRDA.
What responsibility Darade (1998 batch of IAS) lands in the civic body remains a question though as he is junior in service to other additional commissioners. BMC chief Ajoy Mehta under whose tenure the couple was served notices is unlikely to continue in the top position because he is due for transfer after serving a record time.
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